The discussion over calculation is very confused.  It goes that Mises used property and Hayek used knowledge.  While correct, its not the entire story.  Mises identified the knowledge problem first, but pointed out calculation is impossible because the lack of property.  “The mind of one man alone—be it ever so cunning, is too weak to grasp the importance of any single one among the countlessly many goods of a higher order.  No single man can ever master all the possibilities of production.”

If property is given up—or forcibly removed—no rational monetary prices can ever be established.  If prices cannot be established, rational economic calculation is impossible.  Every step away from property is a step away from calculation.  Thus, a step towards chaos.  This fact is very easily overlooked.  Much like Say’s Law, calculation is critical to understanding economics.  Keynesian nonsense and socialist schemes rest on ignoring these.  More precisely, rest on abolishing property.

Mises understood that the lack of knowledge would hinder calculation, but not render it impossible.  While knowledge was the cornerstone of Hayek’s calculation problem.   It is theoretically possible that a cunning committee could know how to produce everything.  However, that cunning committee cannot know what is most urgently needed and cannot compare inputs to outputs.  This is only possible with the private ownership of property.  Socialism is abolishing the rational economy.

Mises, not Hayek, exposes socialism as impossible.  The socialist answer to Mises was that the socialist dictators will play market—slightly more absurd than their excuse to the incentive problem.  Hayek thought calculation was theoretically possible, but Mises knew it was impossible without property.  Hayek is not the great free market advocate most hold him up as. To him, the price system was coercion and coercion was acceptable if it was expected.  Therefore, Rothbard called his The Constitution of Liberty and evil book.

Reference

Ludwig von Mises; Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth